Democrats Should Distrust ‘Electability’ Arguments in 2020

Elizabeth Warren hasn’t entered the 2020 race — but she’s already running her warm-up laps. The Massachusetts senator has been building up her foreign policy bona fides on the Senate Armed Services Committee, sending well wishes (and offers of resources) to Democratic candidates in Iowa and South Carolina, railing against Trump’s corruption in Reno, and whispering theories about how he can be dethroned in private talks with party bigwigs.

In 2016, Warren’s steadfast refusal to challenge Hillary Clinton — despite a grassroots campaign to draft her into that fight — led some to speculate that she simply had no interest in the Oval Office. It’s now clear that she does.

But in that, she’s far from alone. Just about every prominent Democrat seems to have “2020 vision”: Deval Patrick is imploring Democrats to “shout kindness” in the purple patches of Texas; Bernie Sanders is barnstorming for his revolution’s cadre; Cory Booker is eyeing a fall trip through the Deep South; and Kirsten Gillibrand is running (leftward) from her Blue Dog past at such accelerating speed, she may well be an anarcho-syndicalist by the time Iowa gets caucusing. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Steve Bullock, and John Hickenlooper are making their own preparatory noises, while dozens of others are monitoring the price of plane tickets to Des Moines.

Nevertheless, Warren’s moves have been especially assertive; so much so, they’ve triggered headlines about her prospective candidacy in the New York Times and Washington Post — and with them, poorly substantiated arguments about the populist wonk’s “electability,” or lack thereof.

The Times’ Jonathan Martin reports that some Democratic pooh-bahs see Warren as a more viable “populist” alternative to Bernie Sanders:

Perhaps most appealing to Democratic leaders, Ms. Warren might please their activist base while staving off a candidate they fear would lose the general election.

A candidate such as Mr. Sanders.

The 76-year-old Democratic socialist looms over the 2020 race, boasting an unmatched following among activists and a proven ability to raise millions of dollars online. Having pushed policies like single-payer health care and free public college tuition into the Democratic mainstream, Mr. Sanders could be a powerful competitor for the nomination — and a daunting obstacle to Ms. Warren and other economic populists.

But for all the evident support for Mr. Sanders’s policy ideas, many in the party are skeptical that a fiery activist in his eighth decade would have broad enough appeal to oust Mr. Trump.

Meanwhile, the centrist think tank Third Way warned the Post that Warren could give Trump a second term:

Groups like the Democratic think tank Third Way, which has tangled with Warren in the past, have argued that the ideas of the party’s liberal populists will make it harder to elect a Democrat in 2020, since they could confirm a perception, especially among swing voters, that the party is anti-business and overly focused on helping the poor.

“Democrats have struggled with the jobs issue for almost a decade, and the party was not equipped to challenge Donald Trump’s zealous pro-jobs message in 2016,” one Third Way analysis concluded last year, based on focus groups.

Both of these arguments are dubious.

As David Shor of Civis Analytics notes, there is little empirical evidence that Warren would make a stronger general election candidate than Sanders — but quite a lot to suggest the opposite. The Vermont senator’s national approval rating hovers around 56 percent, while Warren’s lies under 40. Sanders’s favorability numbers in Vermont (which is to say, with the constituents who know him best) are far higher than the state’s partisan breakdown would predict; Warren’s home-state favorability, by contrast, is roughly equal to what one would expect a generic Democratic senator to boast in Massachusetts — and her approval rating is also decidedly lower than that of her colleague Ed Markey. And although they have relatively little predictive value, in polls of hypothetical 2020 matchups, Sanders reliably performs better against Trump than Warren does.

None of this means that Sanders would necessarily be the stronger general election candidate. Bernie spent part of the 1980s as an elector for a Trotskyist political party; Warren spent that decade as a Reagan Republican. Thus, GOP ad makers should have an easier time painting Sanders as a traitorous pinko. Plus, the man will be pushing 80 years old in 2020 — there’s a genuine risk that he could die during the campaign’s homestretch.

Still, it isn’t the case that all nonquantitative considerations redound to Warren’s benefit. There is cause to suspect that an aging, angry white man — with a talent for projecting authenticity — might be an easier sell to Rust Belt swing voters than a professorial, professional-class woman. And then, there’s the maddeningly plausible possibility that Trump’s “Pocahontas” smear may actually be an effective political attack.

All of which is to say: While it is possible that Warren would be the stronger general election candidate, the evidence for that proposition is so weak, it’s hard to believe that any neutral observer would strongly endorse it.

It’s quite easy, by contrast, to see why some Democratic leaders would simply like Warren better than Sanders. For one thing, the former is actually a member of their party, and spends much less time railing against its “Establishment.” For another, she is much better versed on the details of policy than Sanders is, and boasts a more conventionally meritocratic background.

Similarly, Third Way’s claim that Democrats would be best served by nominating a “pro-business” candidate in 2016 is so unsubstantiated — and ideologically convenient for an organization that exists to promote “pro-business” progressivism — that it’s impossible to take seriously.

Electability arguments have always been handy stalking horses for substantive disagreement. But in previous cycles, there was some plausibility to the idea that party pooh-bahs could identify in advance which candidate was most likely to prevail in November.

In the age of Trump, this just isn’t so. If mocking prisoners of war and the disabled — and bragging about adultery and pussy-grabbing — do not necessarily render one “unelectable,” it’s impossible to believe any Democratic operative who says with certainty that a honeymoon in the Soviet Union does.

Separately, all available evidence suggests that it won’t actually matter that much how “electable” the Democrats’ 2020 nominee is. Donald Trump entered office as the most unpopular president-elect in American history. Since then, his approval rating has declined in all 50 states; in the Midwest battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio, his favorability is now net negative. In hypothetical 2020 polls, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders lead Trump by double digits; while Warren and less prominent Democrats best him by smaller, but still comfortable, margins.

Photo: Morning Consult

Which is to say: At the height of an economic expansion, with unemployment sitting near historic lows, Donald Trump is poised to lose reelection in a landslide.

A lot can change in two years. But some important things, like macroeconomic conditions, are more likely to change in ways that hurt Trump than in ones that help him. And if current trends persist, and Democrats take the House this fall, their oversight will ensure that the second half of Trump’s first term will be even more plagued by scandal that its current one. Meanwhile, the demographic changes that have helped Democrats win the popular vote in six of the last seven elections are only accelerating — millennials will constitute a larger share of the voting-eligible population in 2020 than baby-boomers.

It took a confluence of low-probability developments — the Comey letter, Russian hacking, a last-minute hike in Obamacare premiums, and the presence of two (relatively well-funded) third-party candidates — to put Trump into the White House. In all probability, it will take only a minimally politically competent Democrat to get him out. (This is largely why the Democratic field is already so thickly crowded.)

Thus, in the 2020 Democratic primary, electability arguments will be less credible and relevant than in any such race in recent memory. But the incentives for making bad faith electability claims will be as high as ever: Given the high probability that the party’s nominee will prevail in November, Democratic operatives of all stripes will be free to pretend that the true key to victory is adopting all of their policy preferences.

Barring a sharp change in the political winds (or Trump’s removal from office), Democratic voters should ignore such punditry, and simply vote for whichever candidate they would most like to be president.

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THE FEED

1:28 p.m.

WhatsApp with that?

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, uses an unofficial online messaging service for official White House business, including with foreign contacts, his lawyer told the House Oversight Committee late last year.

The lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said he was not aware if Mr. Kushner had communicated classified information on the service, WhatsApp, and said that because he took screenshots of the communications and sent them to his official White House account or the National Security Council, his client was not in violation of federal records laws.

In a letter disclosing the information, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee said that he was investigating possible violations of the Presidential Records Act by members of the Trump administration, including Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump. He accused the White House of stonewalling his committee on information it had requested for months.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to stop disparaging the late Sen. John McCain, calling the Vietnam war hero “a dear friend” and defending him against the president’s criticisms. …

Ernst’s remarks came during a town hall meeting at a high school in Adel, Iowa, where several attendees voiced anger about Trump’s attacks about McCain. One attendee described McCain as a “genuine war hero” and called Trump’s comments about McCain “cowardly.”

“I do not appreciate his tweets,” Ernst said, when pressed by the attendee why she didn’t previously speak out more forcefully. “John McCain is a dear friend of mine. So, no I don’t agree with President Trump and he does need to stop.”

As we anticipate the end of Mueller, signs of a wind-down:-SCO prosecutors bringing family into the office for visits-Staff carrying out boxes-Manafort sentenced, top prosecutor leaving-office of 16 attys down to 10-DC US Atty stepping up in cases-grand jury not seen in 2mo

For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.

Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations.

Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them. Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again.

… Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.

Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy.

Attorneys for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and more than a dozen other defendants charged in a Florida prostitution sting filed a motion to stop the public release of surveillance videos and other evidence taken by police.

Attorneys filed the motion Wednesday in Palm Beach County court. The State of Florida does not agree with the request, according to the filing.

In the motion, the attorneys asked the court to grant a protective order to safeguard the confidentiality of the materials seized from the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, and “in particular the videos, until further order of the court.”

Two years in, White House aides are dismayed to discover the president likes lobbing pointless, nasty attacks at people like George Conway and John McCain

But the saga has left even White House aides accustomed to a president who bucks convention feeling uncomfortable. While the controversies may have pushed aside some bad news, they also trampled on Trump’s Wednesday visit to an army tank manufacturing plant in swing state Ohio.

“For the most part, most people internally don’t want to touch this with a 10-foot pole,” said one former senior White House official. A current senior White House official said White House aides are making an effort “not to discuss it in polite company.” Another current White House official bemoaned the tawdry distraction. “It does not appear to be a great use of our time to talk about George Conway or dead John McCain. … Why are we doing this?

When Mr. Trump was running for president, he promised to personally stop American companies from shutting down factories and moving plants abroad, warning that he would punish them with public backlash and higher taxes. Many companies scrambled to respond to his Twitter attacks, announcing jobs and investments in the United States — several of which never materialized.

But despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to compel companies to build and hire, they appear to be increasingly prioritizing their balance sheets over political backlash.

“I don’t think there’s as much fear,” said Gene Grabowski, who specializes in crisis communications for the public relations firm Kglobal. “At first it was a shock to the system, but now we’ve all adjusted. We take it in stride, and I think that’s what the business community is doing.”

There’s no specific stipulation that Milo must be heard, so it could be worse

President Trump is expected to issue an executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to tie research and education grants made to colleges and universities to more aggressive enforcement of the First Amendment, according to a draft of the order viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The order instructs agencies including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and Defense to ensure that public educational institutions comply with the First Amendment, and that private institutions live up to their own stated free-speech standards.

The order falls short of what some university officials feared would be more sweeping or specific measures; it doesn’t prescribe any specific penalty that would result in schools losing research or other education grants as a result of specific policies.

Tech companies say that it is easier to identify content related to known foreign terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda because of information-sharing with law enforcement and industry-wide efforts, such as the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a group formed by YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter in 2017.

On Monday, for example, YouTube said on its Twitter account that it was harder for the company to stop the video of the shootings in Christchurch than to remove copyrighted content or ISIS-related content because YouTube’s tools for content moderation rely on “reference files to work effectively.” Movie studios and record labels provide reference files in advance and, “many violent extremist groups, like ISIS, use common footage and imagery,” YouTube wrote.

The cycle is self-reinforcing: The companies collect more data on what ISIS content looks like based on law enforcement’s myopic and under-inclusive views, and then this skewed data is fed to surveillance systems, Bloch-Wehba says. Meanwhile, consumers don’t have enough visibility in the process to know whether these tools are proportionate to the threat, whether they filter too much content, or whether they discriminate against certain groups, she says.

Two mystery litigants citing privacy concerns are making a last-ditch bid to keep secret some details in a lawsuit stemming from wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s history of paying underage girls for sex.

Just prior to a court-imposed deadline Tuesday, two anonymous individuals surfaced to object to the unsealing of a key lower-court ruling in the case, as well as various submissions by the parties.

Both people filed their complaints in the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which is overseeing the case. The two people said they could face unwarranted speculation and embarrassment if the court makes public records from the suit, in which Virginia Giuffre, an alleged Epstein victim, accused longtime Epstein friend Ghislaine Maxwell of engaging in sex trafficking by facilitating his sexual encounters with teenage girls. Maxwell has denied the charges.

Rescue teams in Mozambique are struggling to reach the thousands of people stranded on roofs and in trees and urgently need more helicopters and boats as post-cyclone flood waters continue to rise.

Rescue workers, military personnel and volunteers are rushing to save thousands of Mozambicans before flood levels rise further, but with four helicopters, a handful of boats and extremely difficult conditions, have only been able to save about 413 so far.

“I don’t even know if we’ve made a dent. There are just so many people. The scale is huge. We’re busy doing the best we can,” said Travis Trower from Rescue South Africa, adding that a lot of people had been washed away but those still alive, whom he had seen from helicopter flights, were in a very bad state.

More than 400 sq kilometres (150 sq miles) in the region are flooded, according to satellite images taken by the EU, and in some places the water is six metres (19ft) deep. At least 600,000 people are affected, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ranging from those whose lives are in immediate danger to those who need other kinds of aid.